Children’s Mental Health Week by Jayne Bond

To mark Children’s Mental health week, here are a few practical tips on how you can support your child’s mental health.

As parents, one of our most important roles is to support and nurture our children’s emotional well-being. With the increasing pressures and challenges of modern life, our children need us more than ever to help them navigate their emotions and develop resilience. We can do this through effective communication, setting boundaries, emotional regulation, and fostering self-esteem.

Listen Actively

Give your child your full attention when they are speaking. Put away distractions such as your phone or TV and make eye contact. Show that you are listening by nodding and responding with comments like “I see” or “That sounds tough.”

Instead of asking questions that can answered with yes or no, ask open ended questions, for example ‘What was the best part of your day’? this allows your child to reflect on their day.

Be Open and Honest

Encourage open and honest conversations by being open and honest yourself. Share your thoughts and feelings in an age-appropriate way, and let your child know that it’s okay to express their emotions.

Responsiveness

When your child is dealing with a challenging situation or feelings, they could be emotional in their communication with you. If they are angry, don’t react by meeting them back with anger, meet them with curiosity and calm, wondering what has made them feel angry.

Validation

Acknowledge your child’s emotions and let them know that it’s okay to feel what they are feeling. For example, “It sounds like you are really frustrated. It’s okay to feel that way.”

Set Healthy Boundaries

Boundaries are essential for creating a safe and predictable environment for your child. Here are some tips for setting and maintaining boundaries:

Be Clear and Consistent

Clearly communicate the rules and expectations to your child and be consistent in enforcing them. Consistency helps children understand what is expected of them and what the consequences are for not following the rules. Let your child be involved in any conversations about ‘House Rules’, as they need to be fair and apply to everyone.

Be Firm but Fair

While it’s important to be firm in setting boundaries, it’s equally important to be fair and understanding. Take the time to explain the reasons behind the rules and listen to your child’s perspective.

Offer Choices

Giving your child choices within the boundaries you set can help them feel a sense of autonomy and independence. For example, “You can choose to do your homework now or after dinner.”

Emotional Regulation

Helping your child learn to regulate their emotions is crucial for their mental health. Here are some tips for teaching emotional regulation:

 

Model Healthy Coping Strategies

Children learn by observing their parents. Model healthy coping strategies such as deep breathing, taking a break, or talking about your feelings. Your child will be more likely to adopt these strategies themselves. Children learn the most from watching you. If they see coping well in stressful situations, they are likely to manage them well too.

Create a Calm Environment

Create a calm and peaceful environment at home where your child feels safe and secure. This can include having a quiet space for relaxation and limiting exposure to stressful situations. Have limits on screen time for the whole family. Eat meals together, this is a great time to talk together!

Encourage Emotional Expression

Encourage your child to express their emotions in healthy ways, such as talking about their feelings, drawing, or writing in a journal. Let them know that it’s okay to feel and express a range of emotions. If you child struggles to express their feelings, name what you are seeing, for example, your fists are clenched and your shoulders are hunched, you look angry. This gives them the vocabulary to express how they feel and notice the sensations in their body.

Praise Effort, Not Just Achievement

Praise your child for their effort and hard work, not just their achievements. This helps them develop a growth mindset and understand that their value is not solely based on their accomplishments.

Encourage Independence

Encourage your child to take on age-appropriate responsibilities and make decisions for themselves. This helps them develop a sense of competence and confidence in their abilities. Children need to feel capable and useful.

 

 

Focus on Strengths

Help your child identify and focus on their strengths and talents. Encourage them to pursue activities and hobbies that they enjoy and want to get better at.

Be Supportive and Loving

When our children are being unlovable, is when they need the most love! Show your child that you love and support them unconditionally. Be there for them during difficult times and celebrate their successes. Your support and encouragement are crucial for building their self-esteem.

Self-Care

Supporting your child’s mental health is a continuous and evolving process. By maintaining open communication, setting clear boundaries, teaching emotional regulation, and fostering self-esteem, you can help your child develop the resilience and skills they need to navigate life’s challenges. Remember, your role as a parent is vital, and the love and support you provide are invaluable to your child’s mental well-being. Make sure you are taking care of your own well-being, as it’s hard to give, what you are not receiving yourself. As our founder, Kim McCabe says, ‘Put your own oxygen mask on first!’ Create practises and find the people, that support and resource you, so that you have the patience and energy to model this to your children.

Jayne Bond is a Girls Journeying Together Facilitator and Girls’ Net Mentor in the Bognor Regis area. To find out more about groups and taster please use the link below to contact her.

Jayne Bond

Helping girls to find their voice by Charlotte Sarre

At the start of a new year, we can ask ourselves, “Do we really speak our truth?”

For many, the transition from one year to another is the perfect time to reflect. Before stepping over the threshold of a new year, it can be good to spend time celebrating the successes of the year gone by, but also honouring the hard and painful moments.

We can reflect on all aspects of our lives: our work, the things that bring us joy, and our relationships – with our family, colleagues, friends and most importantly, ourselves. After looking back, we can think about how we want to move forward, stepping into the new year with intention and purpose.

So we can ask ourselves: How will we show up for ourselves? How will we protect our peace, hold our boundaries and speak our truth? For women in particular, speaking up can be a hard one. Although we’ve come a long way when it comes to gender inequality, most women still suffer from the collective wound inflicted by patriarchal society which often includes a fear of speaking out, a fear of using our voice.

 

I can remember when it became hard for me to use my voice. It was when I was a teenage girl. Feeling brave, I could speak up, but only to myself or the people I trusted the most. Out in the world, I would be on guard. When something happened that didn’t feel right, I often found myself socially paralysed. Heat would rise in my body, including my face, which made me wish a hole would appear into which I could disappear. I would be searching for words that wouldn’t come; and not wanting to make the other person feel uncomfortable, I’d not say anything. I’d feel uncomfortable instead, with a throat that felt as if a vice was being tightened around it.

Over time, as I replayed the situation over and over in my head, words would well up from within me and gather right underneath that vice. More and more, pressing against each other, tumbling out of my inner knowing, desperate to be screamed into the silence I had created. But the vice would stay closed.

Girls can lose their voice before they enter their teens

Growing up today is particularly hard for girls. Add to that a huge life transition like puberty and it’s easy to see how a girl, and her voice, can get lost. Interestingly, many young children don’t have issues with speaking up and asserting themselves, boy or girl. We’ve all heard toddlers say “Hey, that’s my toy!” or “I don’t like this game, let’s play this instead.” Yet, when those toddlers grow up and enter puberty, their voice is silenced. Teenagers carry the burden of countless pressures and expectations and the need to fit in makes standing up for yourself difficult. It becomes hard to say, “I don’t want to go to that party” when everyone else is going. At that age, my own self-consciousness and lack of understanding of who I was, made me doubt myself and unsure whether or not I could trust my intuition. Even when I listened to the messages my body was sending me, I simply didn’t have the vocabulary to put words to the feelings and I lost my ‘voice’.

Many women and girls struggle with speaking up. When we have safe places to practice giving attention to how we think and feel, we can experiment with speaking our truth out loud.

Charlotte is a Trainer and Accredited Girls Journeying Together Facilitator. She runs groups in South East London and you can find more details here: 

Charlotte Sarre